Langkawi is a duty free island near the Thai border. During the peak season it’s very busy and quite expensive. Off season we were welcomed by rain and more backpacker friendly prices. Langkawi means reddish brown eagle in colloquial Malay and hence large eagle statute is symbolising the island. We arrived by boat in the harbor witout any idea where we want to stay. After quick consideration we chose Pantai Cenang (Cenang Beach). Taxi there costed us MR24. We didn’t know where to start looking for accommodation but the driver got us really annoyed when pretending to be death to our requests to stop. He brought us all the way to AB Motel. Typically it would be the last place where we wanted to go after all this. Maybe he meant well but seemed to be very cheeky about it. It came to verbal scuffles to the extent that a by walked asked what happened. Anyway it was still raining as we sat down to have some coffe. Bent over a guide and telephone already started to lose hope for something in our budget. When the girl from the cafe came over. She advised us to walk pass Restaurant rasa and turn right into a small street where cheaper accommodation is available. This is how we went from MR170 per night to MR70.
It obviously wasn’t the right time because there was nobody around and the guesthouses looked deserted. Finally we got to Rainbow Lodge. Nicest place where we stayed for me anyway. Very friendly staff. We had a small “house” for ourselves which had a hard but comfortable bed and a wet room (aircon and TV for those interested) and two chairs on our small patio. What else would you want… well sun. This is how it looked like when we finally got to sit on the patio
The weather did improve with time. So we got sun burned in the end. There are many attractions and activities in a sea/island resort like this one. Massage, spa, paragliding, water skiing, karting, night market. Details you can find here.
I will dedicate a separate post to Langkwai SkyCab (cablecar). Now it’s night life time and our local for the stay. It was a bar made of wooden boards in front of the grocery store in which the bartender bought beer for the clients. All other alcohols were delivered. The barman and his assistant Leila were very friendly but not pushing and we really had a lot of fun. The mix of coctails on our first night was awsome but made us stick to beer and gin & tonic the following nights. Check out Bob Marley!
Our bartender in the foreground
One cocktail costs MR12 and depending on relationship with bartender can be stronger or weaker. Saying this I can imagine they are way stronger at the beginning and then have less and less alkohol and more and more “colorful stuff”. The speciality of the house are card tricks making clients jaws drop.
Some people will not stop to amaze me. Like this German guy who went to the shop to buy a beer and then wanted to sit by the bar to drink it. Honestly?
Ok long awaited beach pictures arrive:
Regarding last picture. One day we came to the beach and to our surprise noone was in the water. What? We thought about it for a second but headed into the sea anyway. A first and I just behind him. Suddenly something touched my leg. It felt like plastic bag floating in wated. We kept going. A thinking “What the hell is wrong with her??!!” It happened again and third time and this is when I said let’s get out and so I did. When I reached the shore I saw the rash of jellyfish you can see above and waved A back. Terryfing. Later on we tried to move little further down the beach where we saw some people but once we noticed brown jellyfish we gave up.
To sum up: we had great time even though bathing wasn’t so great. We had better experience in KK (Kota Kinabalu). Next post will be about cable cart as promissed.
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